He now bent his energies to bring before Congress the condition and needs of our lighthouse system. He wrote a vigorous and detailed letter exposing the abuses and the schemes of the ignorant set of plunderers who were opposing improvement. He proved that often important lighthouses were left for days in charge of wholly incompetent persons. Hence there was waste, robbery, and inefficiency, while a powerful combination held the system in its coils. “The Lighthouse Ring” was then as strong as that of “The Indian Ring” of later years. Further, the battle was one of science and new ideas against ignorance and ultra-conservative old fogyism. The lenses were struggling against the reflectors. The latter were the outcome of the emission theory of the propagation of light. The Lenticular method was based on the undulatory theory. Ignorance and avarice long held the field, but under the hammer-like facts and arguments of Perry, and those who thought with him, both were routed, and the present grand system is the final result. Our lighthouse establishment is not a creation, it is a growth.
At the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, the exhibit made by the government of the United States was under the charge of Rear-Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins, one of Perry’s pupils and friends. The triumphs of a half century in the illuminating art were manifest. Progress had at first crept by slow steps, from rude beacons of wood or coal fires on headlands, to oil lamps with flat wicks and spherical reflectors, to paraboloid mirrors and argand burners, to eclipse revolving or flashing lights. The katoptric system of Teulère, based on the reflection of light by metallic surfaces was introduced about 1790, and soon came in vogue among most civilized nations. It was costly and expensive, since half the rays of light were lost by absorption in the mirror even when new and perfectly polished; while the loss was far more when the mirror was old, unclean, or in constant use. Yet despite its many defects, it was the best of its kind known until Fresnel’s brilliant discoveries based on the principle of a burning-glass or convex lens refraction. After a struggle, the dioptric conquered the katoptric, and lenses rule the coast.
It was to introduce the dioptric system that Perry now earnestly labored. The influence of his arguments in Congress was powerful, and from this time the lenticular method prevailed, and the system of lighthouses on all our coasts was extended. From the first lighthouse built by the general government in 1791 at Cape Henry, the number had increased to seven in 1800. In 1838 there were but sixteen. The number now is not far from 250.
No less an authority than Rear-Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins, who, besides being the Naval Secretary of the Light-House Board from 1869 to 1871, framed the organic law under which the present efficient Light-House Board was established in 1852, says that “Through Perry’s influence the first real step was taken towards the present good system.” The light on the Neversink Highlands which the voyager to Europe sees, as the last sign of native land as it sinks below the horizon is one of the first, as it was the direct, fruits of Perry’s mission.
In an excellent article on this subject in the American Whig Review, March 1845, the same which contained Poe’s “Raven,” the writer, after commending Perry’s work and expatiating on the excellence of the Fresnel light, pleads for the union of science and experience, and more administrative method for this branch on the efficacy and perfection of which depend, not only the wealth with which our ships are freighted, but the lives of thousands who follow the sea.
When, in 1852, Perry lived to see his efforts crowned with success, and Congress finally organized the Light-House Board, Jenkins wished Perry to take the presidency of the Board; but other matters were pressing, Japan was looming up, and he declined.
CHAPTER XVI.
REVOLUTIONS IN NAVAL ARCHITECTURE.
On his return from Europe, in 1839, Captain Perry purchased a plot of land near Tarrytown, New York. He built a stone cottage, to which he gave the appropriate name of “The Moorings.” The farm comprised about 120 acres; and, needing much improvement, he set about utilizing his few leisure hours with a view to its transformation. Revelling in the exercise of tireless energy, he set out trees and planted a garden.
To get time for his beloved tasks he rose early in the morning, and long before breakfast had accomplished yeoman’s toil. If no nobler work presented itself, this man of steam and ordnance weeded strawberry beds. In due time this Jason sowing his pecks, not of dragon’s teeth, but of approved peas and beans, rejoiced in a golden fleece and real horn of plenty in the darling garden which produced twelve manner of vegetables.
At “Moorings” Perry was surrounded by most pleasant neighbors and a literary atmosphere which stimulated his own pen to activity during the winter, when long evenings allured to fireside enjoyments or studious labor.